Hard Choices

“I told you to get inside.”

Her head jerked. Logan had appeared around the side of the small house. He stepped around the elevated frame of her ancient water cistern. When her heart drifted back down from her throat, she chanced speech. “Which explains why you’re sneaking around outside my house.” Once again, she found herself wishing that he’d do what he’d come to do and go. It would be painful—like the worst kind of bandage being ripped off her skin. But at least it would be quick.

He came toward her, looking even taller from her half-prone position. The wind was doing a number on his hair, too. Blowing through the short, thick strands of dark brown to reveal a few strands of silver. He was as darkly tanned as she remembered. The contrast made his blue eyes seem even brighter. Logan—in the flesh—made her feel as edgy as he ever had.

The sooner he left, the better.

“Riley is inside. You should take her now. You wouldn’t want to get stuck on the island if the weather goes even more sour.”

“In a hurry to see her go, Annie?” His expression was considering. “Having a teenager around cramping your style?”

She swung her legs off the chaise and rose. “There’s no style to cramp. She doesn’t belong here with me. She belongs at home with Will and Noelle. Nothing’s going to be solved by her remaining here. Everybody, including you, knows that.”

“Maybe she just needs a breather. Don’t you remember needing a breather when you were her age?”

“When I was her age, I’d already been at Bendlemaier for months. And the last place I wanted to be was at home with George and Lucia.”

His lips twisted. He gave her a sidelong look that tightened her stomach. “Liar.”

She stiffened. “What?”

He moved, catching her chin in his big palm, tilting it toward him. She went stock-still, her senses going way beyond alert at the close, wind-blown warmth of him.

“You heard me,” he challenged softly. “When you were Riley’s age, you wanted nothing more than to live at home, to have normal parents who cared more about you than their careers, to go to the same public high school that Will had gone to.”

“I never told you that,” she said stiffly.

His thumb gently tapped her chin. “You didn’t have to tell me everything. It was obvious, Annie. And that night at the boathouse, you said—”

“I said a lot of things.” She felt exposed with her face firmly tilted up to his gaze. “And I was drunk,” she finished flatly.

“Nearly,” he allowed. “On champagne you had no business drinking.”

“Well, you were the only one who noticed.”

“That pissed you off, too, didn’t it?”

She stepped back, deliberately lifting her chin away from his hold. “It was a long time ago and has nothing whatsoever to do with the reason you’re here.”

“Are you so certain about that?”

Her knees felt weak. She refused to sit, though she wanted to. Badly. “Yes, I’m certain.”

The corner of his lips lifted in that saturnine expression of his that visited her too often in her sleep. Ridiculous, really. And maybe it was only because she simply didn’t get involved with men—hadn’t for more years than she could count on her fingers—that she was beset with memories of this one man in particular.

She’d humiliated herself with him at Will’s wedding reception, after all. Her youthfully inflated ego had convinced her that he must surely have had the hots for her, mostly because she hadn’t been able to look at him without feeling as if her nerve endings were on fire.

Well, he’d corrected her on that score.

He could have taken advantage of an impetuous and spoiled teenager intent on playing with fire, but he hadn’t. So, regardless of the wicked cast of his lips, Annie knew that Logan, like Will, was a straight arrow. Despite his devil-dark looks, he’d probably never even crossed the street against the light.

“Aren’t you curious, Annie?”

She snatched at the towel when a gust of wind picked it up off the chaise. She twisted the terrycloth in her hands. “About what? Riley’s real reasons for running away from home? It’s hard to believe it would just be Bendlemaier. Noelle says that Riley has made a small career out of negotiating things she wants or doesn’t want in life.”

“That’s all you’re curious about? Only Riley?” He stepped closer again.

Beyond them, a colorful beach ball hurtled over the sand, followed by a scrap of paper that hung on the wind. For some reason, the sight of them made Annie even more aware of the solitude of her house. Her nearest neighbors were more than a mile away.

She swallowed. “That’s all I can afford to be curious about.”

“Sounds awfully cautious for the Annie I knew.”

Her eyes burned. She blamed it on something in the blowing wind because she didn’t cry. Not anymore. “The Annie you knew no longer exists.” Her words were barely audible. “She learned her lessons the hard way.”

“What lessons?” He jerked his head up before his lips finished forming the question.

An awful buzzing whine had rent the air. Piercing. Loud. Annie nearly jumped out of her skin and covered her ears. “What is that?” She had to yell to be heard above the alarm, above the awful thunder that was suddenly crashing overhead, sounding as if mountains were collapsing.

His hand was on her arm, pushing her through the glass door he slid open. “That’s the emergency siren. A hangover from the Second World War. Get Riley.”

Annie had lived on Turnabout for five years. She hadn’t even known there was an emergency siren. She ran to the second bedroom and threw the door wide, calling Riley’s name.

But the room was empty.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.